As you can tell by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin, I’m not a San Francisco twenty-something. My goatee is gray. Yet I share my workplace with people my daughter’s age. I may actually be the oldest living occupant here.

So what’s a guy like me doing in a place like this?

The place is Citizen Space, a San Francisco co-working location and one of the first of some more than 3,000 similar shared office operations that have sprouted up around the world just since 2005. And for sure, I’m part of a rapidly expanding cohort — by 2013, there were more than 160,000 space sharers like me — up from zero just 9 years ago.

What’s behind the growth? Coworking is a cost-effective alternative, for sure. But consider three other more inconspicuous, but inexorable, trends.

Burgeoning number of independent workers. The number of consultants, contractors, and so-called “solopreneurs” will have soared 50 percent from 2011 by the time they reach an estimated 24 million in 2018, according to an annual workforce report by MBO Partners.

Rise of micro-enterprise. We’re more productive because we’re so much more connected and technologically enabled. Duh. But not so duh is this: The average size of a small business is shrinking from about 7.6 employees in 1991 to about 4.7 in 2011, or so says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. You don’t have to be a MBA to see why co-working makes so much sense to startups and other micro-enterprises like my own MediaArchitechs.

Emergence of the ‘sharing economy.’ After this last great recession, we’re all being forced to do more with less. And a number of new, disruptive ventures have arisen out of finding ways to match demand with hyper-economical or underutilized supply — witness Airbnb, Lyft, Uber, TaskRabbit, ODesk, and, yes, coworking spaces, too. My company has sprouted out the same landscape. Only instead of vacation housing, rides, or personal, contract services, or shared office space, we’re building targeted exchanges for expert advice. The first of these: Our CloudBase3.com, a contextually relevant, magnet media property devoted to helping the nation’s 28M SMBs connect with the 1 million consultants, independent IT service providers, and tech contractors who can provide one-to-one advice for buying services in the $174B cloud-computing market. (Did I just give an elevator pitch?)

But that doesn’t explain why I’m such an unlikely member. Which brings me to the real reason. It’s this: “If you really want to enjoy life,” my favorite novelist Mark Helprin wrote, “you must work quietly and humbly to realize your delusions of grandeur.”

I might share space now, but once I didn’t. I held lofty titles at big companies that bestowed me with my own comfy digs on the upper floors of soaring corporate office towers. It all changed when I did something extraordinarily bold — or certifiably stupid. I started my own company — and at a time when many of my peers are starting to smell the roses of retirement.

So now I spend my days sans the Aeron chair, the ergonomically correct desk, and the door to my own domain. But here’s the thing: I’m fine without these appurtenances, because I’m finding something better in their place — networking with a raft of new contacts far beyond the insular world I occupied at companies such as Yahoo and CNET. And while your expertise and character are keys to success, don’t downplay another key factor, kids — your ability to build relationships.

So now I’m hanging with people like Citizen Space owner Toby Morning, a fellow entrepreneur who has his fingers in as many businesses, I swear, as Warren Buffet. Or take Manish Panjiar, who’s building a disruptive new telemarketing platform. Or how about Sebastian Zontek. He’s an entrepreneur from Poland who’s building a predictive advertising platform. In his case, I’m connecting him, because I spent more years in the media business than I want you to know.

What’s a guy like me is doing in like this? Here’s what: He’s turning away from the cosseted corporate confines that once possessed him and turning to a place where he consorts with others as young at heart, as full ambition, and teeming with hope as he is.

(Patrick Houston the Founder and CEO of MediaArchitechs, a San Francisco Bay Area startup devoted to unleashing the power of free enterprise by making one-to-one advice affordable and accessible to the smallest enterprises in every corner of the world.)

Canvs, the nonprofit co-working space in downtown Orlando, will open next month, co-founder Philip Holt said in an interview with Orlando Business Journal . Holt, also the CEO of Orlando-based analytics company Splyt, said the co-working space inside of the Church Street Exchange building will open Aug. 11.

SURREY — In a time where full pension, salaried nine-to-five jobs are a rarity, more and more people are turning to self-employment for their income.

The problem is, when you work from home, there are a plethora of distractions pulling you away from your work — like screaming children and unwashed laundry — and leasing a commercial office space can be pricey.

Enter Beta Collective, Surrey’s very first co-working space. Jason Wong, with business partners Elvin Cheung and Michael Cheng of online enterprise Witty Cookie, have launched a unique shared office facility in Surrey’s Innovation Boulevard, a cutting-edge business hub set to forge new ground in the areas of health care and technology.

locally connected, globally embedded. That’s what Hawaii’s first co-working space hopes to achieve. It’s called Impact Hub and it’s made up of a community of people, organizations, and businesses. Impact Hubs collaborate with the regional arts scene and also serve as a gallery where local art will be displayed and sold.

It will open in Our Kaka’ako in September and will connect the local enterprising community to a global network of more than 50 Impact Hubs on six continents through HUBNet, an online idea-sharing platform.

In 2005 an independent worker in California conceived of a different way of working; he envisioned a place where independent workers could come together, collaborate and reap the rewards of community, increased productivity and creativity. That worker was Brad Neuberg and the word he used to describe his vision was coworking, is also a cofounder of Citizen Space, arguably the world’s first Coworking Space. On August 9th, approximately 5000 coworking spaces around the world will celebrate Neuberg’s vision as part of International Coworking Day.

Last year (2013) Citizen Spaces started celebrating for an entire week instead of just one day, this year we are encouraging space owners all over the world to join us in celebrating 9 years of coworking, collaboration, and the shared economy!

Coworking Week will begin August 2, 2014, and end on International Coworking Day, August 9, 2014, if you are interested in participating; we have provided a guide to jump start your participation below.

All the marketing materials you need, and some event ideas that we are implementing in SF. You can implement the same program, or remix and mash it up for your space as you see fit.

Here is what we ask participating space owners worldwide to commit to:

1) Promote the event through all channels at your disposal

2) Offer Free Drop In Passes at least one day of Coworking Week Celebration

3) Offer a special “Coworking Week” membership discount to encourage new member sign ups